Solar Power Reaches West Virginia Coalfields

A group devoted to creating alternative energy jobs in Central Appalachia is building a first for West Virginia’s southern coalfields region this week – a rooftop solar array, assembled by unemployed and underemployed coal miners and contractors.

The 40- by 15-foot array going up on a doctor’s office in Williamson is significant not for its size but for its location: It signals to an area long reliant on mining that there can be life beyond coal.